Over the years, computers have developed to bring tremendous changes to technology, company operations, and various aspects of personal and work lives of individuals. With the widespread advent of computers, multimedia has developed to communicate information, entertain, archive information, and provide information to users of computers and other multimedia systems. Relatively recently, compact discs have been developed for storing and retrieving large amounts of information or data when desired to be accessed by users. Magnetic compact discs, i.e., floppy discs, having a rectangular shape were first developed, and custom magnetic disc readers soon became a standard on many computers. Because of the ability to store even larger amounts of digital data, annular-shaped optical compact discs soon became a standard for storing information such as new software programs. The sizes of these annular-shaped compact discs were about 120 mm, and later 80 mm annular-shaped compact discs were developed. Accordingly, computers and other hardware had optical compact discs as standard equipment for loading software and storing and retrieving other data for users. One of the problems with optical compact discs, however, is that these discs are a type of read-only memory (“ROM”) or CD-ROM. In other words, for years it was not possible to write new information to the disc. Accordingly, magnetic compact discs did not and have not yet become obsolete. The cost effective manufacturing and widespread distribution of the CD-ROM, however, continues to make it attractive to users.
In response to this limitation of not being able to write to optical compact discs, technology was developed to try to make optical compact discs more like magnetic compact discs. These compact discs have the ability to read and write information to the discs and are often called writeable compact discs or CD-Rs or CD-RWs. Other hybrid formats have been developed which allow both ROM type qualities and reading and writing qualities on the same disc. An example of such a hybrid disc can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,204,852 by Nakagawa et al. titled “Optical Disc-Like Recoding Medium And Manufacturing Method Thereof.” Such CDRs, CD-RWs, and hybrids, however, can be difficult and expensive to manufacture, have a very small user base, the writers for the format are not yet commonplace, and in some instances provide a much greater reduction in storage and read/writing capacity than the conventional optical compact discs.
Also, in response to this limitation of not being able to write to an optical compact disc, many companies attempted to develop optical compact discs with integrated circuits associated therewith or a magnetic strip associated therewith. Examples of such compact discs can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,381 by Schmidt et al. titled “Processor And Read/Write Head Incorporated In Disk For Communicating Data To Host Directly From Processor Read/Write Head To Read/Write Head of Host Disk Drive” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,652,838 by Lovett titled “Smart Disc CD-ROM.” The problem with such new developments, however, is that such custom type of compact discs require a special or custom reader. The current user base has a conventional compact disc reader. In other words, computer or other hardware manufacturers would have to adopt a new type of reader and this is not being done. Much of this lack of adopting a new reader may be uncertainty over the new format of the storing and reading media. These custom compacts discs having integrated circuits associated therewith also are more expensive to manufacture and quality and other manufacturing, distributing, reading, and writing problems can occur more readily as well.
Other formats of storing information such as digital video discs (“DVDs”) have been developed as well. DVDs are another format for compact discs which provide enhanced formatting and view of digital video. This technology, however, is in many ways only an extension of the CD-ROM technology. Although starting to become more widespread, this technology also requires a separate or new computer drive for users.
Even more recently, compact disc trading or business cards have been developed which have a non-round shape and which are capable of handling DVD, hybrid, and CD-R or CD-RW formats as well. An example of such a card can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,982,736 by Pierson titled “Trading Card Optical Compact Disc.” Although these cards store less information than the conventional larger annular-shaped optical compact discs, these cards advantageously can be used in the same disc readers as the conventional annular-shaped compact discs. In other words, the computer industry does not need to produce custom disc readers to handle these compact disc cards because these cards are compatible with disc drives for the larger 120 mm or 80 mm disc drives.
Additionally, global communications networks, such as the Internet, have been developed so that their use has become much more widespread. A global communications network advantageously allows users throughout the world to communicate via computer network links. One company, Iora Inc. of Burlingame, Calif. and Iora Ltd. of Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom, along with Novell, Inc. of Orem, Utah, has developed a file comparison and replication technology, e.g., SoftCD, which allows compact disc information to be updated through a communications network such as the Internet. Examples of some of the patents related to updating compact discs through the Internet can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,771 by Falls et al. titled “Transaction Synchronization In A Disconnectable Computer And Network,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,198 by Falls et al. titled “Processes And Apparatuses For Generating File Correspondency Through Replication And Synchronization Between Target And Source Computers,” U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,096 by Draper et al. titled “Distributed Database Using Indexed Into Tags To Tracks Events According To Type, Update Cache, Create Virtual Update Log On Demand,” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,434 by Draper et al. titled “Transaction Clash Management In A Disconnectable Computer And Network.” This technology allows a user to insert an optical compact disc into a disc drive and have the compact disc periodically updated through the Internet by writing information to a hard drive or other memory of the user's computer instead of the disc itself. This advantageously allows the user to purchase and use a compact disc and yet have the information on the compact disc to become stale or obsolete.
It was originally thought by many that the Internet would greatly reduce or destroy the CD-ROM market. Instead, large computer and software companies and Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) have distributed millions and millions of CD-ROMs. Although this technology of updating compact discs through a global communications network such as the Internet is helpful, there is still a need for a more flexible, user friendly, and complete systems or methods for updating compact discs and especially compact disc cards.